The Sunday Giveaway: Two tickets to Murder Ballad Off Broadway!

Murder Ballad was a surprise hit earlier this season at Manhattan Theatre Club’s newly re-opened Off Broadway underground space, and now it’s back downtown at the Union Square Theatre for an uber cool commercial run.

It’s got a “killer” cast (get it? Murder Ballad? Killer? I made a “punny”) – Will Swenson, Caissie Levy, John Ellison Conlee, Rebecca Naomi Jones. And they’ve modified the Union Square Theatre to make the show “environmental.”

Environmental shows seem to be all the rage these days, with Sleep No More, and more recently, Here Lies Love and Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 amongst others.

What is it about environmental productions? Is it a generational thing? Has the modern theater reached an age where our audiences (or our creators) are bored with seeing the same shows in such similar spaces that they’ve busted down the fourth wall and created fifth and sixth walls? Is it even neater if it doesn’t take place in a theater? Can any show be environmental?

While I encourage your comments on all those questions, it’s the last one that is the subject of this Giveaway. Pick a show, any show, and set it in an environment specific to the production (ex. Little Shop of Horrors in a Flower Shop) and I’ll pick one winner . . . and that winner will get two tickets to Murder Ballad!

Good luck! Happy Murder!

(Got a comment? I love ‘em, so comment below! Email Subscribers, click here then scroll down to say what’s on your mind!)

Kiernan Matts

Ken Sanders

Ken – I once directed a production of STEEL MAGNOLIAS in an actual hair salon that a friend of mine owned, where the audience sat three-quarter, wrapped around the action. Fascinating. The audience members where literally IN the shop itself, placing them literally at the very edges of the action. So as the play occurred, and shampoos and stylings and blow dryings took place, the audience was there in the very midst of these women’s lives. It immersed the audience members in a marvelous way, almost making them fellow patrons IN the salon.

Mickey

Mickey

Allie

Brandon

I’m from Pittsburgh and I had a director that I worked with that wants to do August Wilson’s “Seven Guitars” in the backyard that the play takes places. AKA Wilson’s childhood home in the Hill District.

Sierra

Letting everyone onstage to get drinks at Once does make it sort of environmental, but it is still in a theater with the fourth wall clearly intact. I’d be interested to see how the show would play when performed in a real pub, with the actors/musicians sitting among the audience.

Mark

Sue

Stephanie

Rafi Levavy

Sweeney Todd in a barber shop. 12 Angry Men in a jury room. (That would be an intimate production.)

It seems like cheating to say shows like Altar Boyz or Hedwig in clubs.

As a sidenote, an example of this type of thing that I really liked was when they did On The Town at the Delecorte, for the scene that took place in central park, they just set it up so there was no scenery and you saw the park behind the stage. Another one that I liked was Lettice & Lovage in an old house, as if they were giving a tour.

John P.

Josh lamon

I love environmental theatre. I would love to do an Equus that is staged in an old farm house. In the round with two levels. Another idea would be a revival of The Gin Game. Have the audience walk through a “retirement home” or building set up as such to the waiting area where the show takes place. My final dream show would be Diary of Anne Frank. In a building similar to sleep no more. The design would be that of an old industrial building. Have the audience enter the space through a book shelf. The audience would sit in the round. The entire apartment would be laid out as it really was with walls/doors cut in half so you could see everyone in their environment at all times.

Eddie

I think Anything Goes would be fantastic on a dinner cruise ship. The audience could wander around the ship catching the big on-deck production numbers or catching the smaller scenes in the staterooms.

Arthur Raphael

The entertainment world has become much more interactive. It’s no longer sufficient to sit and watch. Audiences want to feel a part if the action. The first “big show” I thought if that did this was Webber’s Phantom, with the audience standing in for the opera-goers, imperiled beneath the titular chandelier! Can any show be environmental that way? I’d say yes, though I’d have trouble being served a pie while watching Sweeney Todd.

Barbara

“Wicked” in Oz,(it must exist somewhere), “Peter and the Starcatcher” on a pirate ship, “How to Succeed in Business” in an office building, “Newsies” on the streets of New York,”Into the Woods” in, yes well, the woods.

Brian

A rolling production of Merrily We Roll Along! First scene at a high school in New York City. They get in a bus with the cast as they sing “rolling along”. From that point on, The audience must decide if they want to ride on Mary’s bus with a bar, Charlie’s bus which has great show tunes playing or Frank’s luxury bus that has a surcharge. They to a chic penthouse when the audience mingles with guests who are Rich And Happy. Then to a television studio for Franklin Shepard INC. We tour New York City get to the front of the Court House for Best Thing… For Opening Doors we go to the Brill building. The show ends on a rooftop at dusk.

Steven J. Conners

Now that the “shop” is no longer locked, tradition is no longer in play. You used to have to know somebody to get a show on B’Way. Today, anyone with money (not necessarily taste)can do a show. “Everybody wants to be an art director…” Nay, now they’re the producers, writers, directors, etc, etc. Look how the shows open and close, open and close. No substance. Not many long runs. -sjc

Morgan M

The Pillowman at Eastern State Penitentiary. You could have all the characters cast several times and have all the scenes performed simultaneously in different parts of the dilapidated building so that patrons could move from place to place. Each cast would perform the entire show but in a round so each cast would start at a different point in the play. It would be scary but also artistic and innovative and has selling potential because think about how many tickets you could sell for each performance in a limited engagement.

Robert

Ed

SECRET GARDEN in a old mansion and estate. I think site specific shows work well when there is some mystery about them, some aspect of going through a haunted house. This show and that kind of space would really be a magical evening in the theater.

There are so many… my favourites are: Into the Woods in the woods (which has probably been done before), Priscilla Queen of the Desert in a desert, Sister Act in a church, Anything Goes on a ship, Chicago in a prison, The Little Mermaid under the sea (as if), and Cats in a junkyard.

Having just seen it last night, Macbeth with Alan Cumming set in an actual psychiatric ward, perhaps Bellevue in NY, Creedmoor in Queens or my personal fave the Graystone Asylum in NJ. I get chills just thinking about it.

Courtney

Julia F

The obvious one is Follies in a condemned theater, no? You could stage different scenes in dressing and rehearsal rooms, with ghosts wandering the entire building. Or Sunday in the Park at the Met; the first act, outside in Central Park, the second inside with actors mingling with paintings.

Sleep No More is distinct in that the experience isn’t linear or even necessarily narrative. For the other examples, I think adapting the physical environs is just the next extension of creativity in interpretation – a leap from a period treatment of Hamlet to setting it in a modern police state to staging it in a graveyard.

Shiraz

While Follies is the obvious one, I’d love to see it created into a new experience where it loses some of the linear story line and instead we can choose to follow the interlocking stories of each of the characters who currently only get a brief moment through various backstage spaces. Heck, you could even change which gals come to the reunion each night.

Dean Roth

Scott Briefer

I have always wanted to see, Mack and Mabel, played on an enormous sound stage. This problematic musical would be brilliant set in an actual movie studio with the audience on moving bleachers to emulate the various film set-ups: close up (bleachers pulled in close), mid-shot, long-shot, tracking (bleachers moving and following the action), etc. It would be beyond anything NY has ever seen.

Eb

Sabrina

In the Heights as a roving, mobile production in Washington Heights. You could include real views of the GWB, be in the actual Bennett Park, plus a real bodega, salon, fire escape, club, and maybe even a real hydrant that could be opened.

Amanda

Damn Yankees as an outdoor production on a baseball field would be great! It could be tailor-made for any size, from tiny little community productions on rec fields to bigger productions at larger venues like minor league fields. Audiences would sit on bleacher seats or in the stands. There would be instant concessions options with many fields having places to sell food/beverages. With playing space on both the grass and the dirt, there would be plenty of places to do all scenes and dance numbers. The dancing baseball boys would be wonderful to see on an actual field! And there’s even great potential for “Whatever Lola Wants” – she could even climb up some of the fencing. It would be an amazing summer theater production.

I’d like to see “Doubt” in a big old Church in the Bronx, perhaps the one that inspired the play. I’d love to sit in the garden for the garden scene and in the pews for the priest’s sermons. There is a special atmosphere in a church and rectory and parish hall that really evokes feelings.

Brandon Powell

O. Weisberg

Michael L.

Environmental theatre in NYC isn’t so new: in the 1980’s in the Park Avenue Armory, there was an exciting production of “Tamara,” where the audience followed one of the characters throughout the spaces, and then shared dinner to compare notes and fill in the story gaps. Around that time Tony and Tina’s Wedding became a site-specific hit as well.
What’s exciting for me about site-specific theatre is taking an audience to a venue they’d enjoy even without theatre being presented there. And when the right show is done in that space, it’s an EVENT! That’s what I did when I directed a Poe adaptation in the underground bunkers at Fort Funston in San Francisco. Creepy!
I’d love to direct Hamlet in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, using its magnificent scale and height, as well as playing intimate scenes in its smaller chapels. The gardens would be perfect for the graveyard scene. They also have an underground theatre (in ruins) which would be perfect for the play-within-the-play. I had the opportunity to direct a scene from Hamlet there when I was a grad student – so much fun!!

RRobertson

I submit not a single play per se, but an immersive experience based on the plays of Tennessee Williams, in a setting suggesting the playwright’s mind (a long list of addresses: the French Quarter, a house in Key West, hotel in New York, his sister’s asylum) haunted by the tragic characters and dialogue he penned.

Tim R.

I am DYING to see Murder Ballad. (Get it? Dying?)
Anyway, I would love to see the musical I wrote ‘Ghostlight’ about the life of Olive Thomas at the actual New Amsterdam Theatre, where most of the show takes place!

Also, seeing ‘Sweeney Todd’ in an adandoned church or ‘Into the Woods’ in a forest where the audience follows the characters around, helping them look for the objects, etc. would both be pretty epic.

Also, why not set Grey Gardens in its actual location! I’d be first in line to see that one!

BIG fan of Environmental Theatre! If it wasn’t for the practical need to pack people in like sardines to justify the cost of a single performance… I would ONLY do Environmental Theatre! My dream would be to do Restoration Comedy in an English Manor House (as it was most often performed for the family and a small group of invited guests!

How ’bout Dante’s “Inferno” in… Hell (I know someone who knows someone… who can get us a good Deal – and it won’t cost You your Soul!)

Chelsea

Dave

How bout SOUTH PACIFIC on one of the islands that serves as a popular docking point for the cruise liners – maybe Tahiti, or Samoa?

(Or, State Fair at a state fair, or Carousel on a carousel, or Oklahoma! in … wait for it … Oklahoma. What are we learning here? That Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t that imaginative in their titles, I guess.)

ECP

Colton

Jennifer Bryan

Can’t beat seeing Sound of Music in a stunning outdoor mountain setting, like this yearly performance in Leavenworth, WA – the show even starts with a man in liederhosen playing an alpenhorn (remember the Ricola commercials?) from higher up on the mountain. http://www.leavenworthsummertheater.org/the-sound-of-music.
As they describe it. “The sun falls behind the ridge, the moon rises over the valley, and Maria descends the hillside singing “The Hills are Alive.”

Tom L

Donna

Jennifer Bryan

Can’t beat seeing Sound of Music in a stunning outdoor mountain setting, like the yearly performance in Leavenworth, WA – the show even starts with a man in liederhosen playing an alpenhorn (remember the Ricola commercials?) from higher up on the mountain.
As they describe it. “The sun falls behind the ridge, the moon rises over the valley, and Maria descends the hillside singing “The Hills are Alive.”

Jennifer Bryan

You can’t beat seeing Sound of Music in a stunning outdoor mountain setting, like the yearly performance in Leavenworth, WA – the show even starts with a man in liederhosen playing an alpenhorn (remember the Ricola commercials?) from higher up on the mountain.
As they describe it. “The sun falls behind the ridge, the moon rises over the valley, and Maria descends the hillside singing “The Hills are Alive.”

Jonah Stabinski

Bob

You’re so interesting! I do not suppose I’ve truly read through something like that before. So nice to discover somebody with some original thoughts on this subject. Really.. thanks for starting this up. This site is something that is required on the internet, someone with some originality!